


Refrain

by Hope



Category: 21 Jump Street
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-19
Updated: 2005-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-03 11:08:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hope/pseuds/Hope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>set immediately after season one episode "gotta finish the riff". see <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/angstslashhope/759048.html">this post</a> for visual clues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Refrain

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to Claire &amp; Lisa.

Judy offers to drop them home; Fuller taking the kid to the station in the cruiser, no more room for them to cram in the backseat with Ioki calling shotgun on his way to the emergency room. Penhall's still wearing the stupid pizza-boy hat and Tom can see its smeared reflection in the window on his side of the back seat, watching the coloured night-lights slide by slowly as his body -- finally -- gradually relaxes. It hurts more than he expected, after hours of tense adrenaline rinsing the ache out of bruised limbs, and his face feels swollen and tender. He lifts a hand, touching fingertips to the skin pulled taught over his cheekbone and sees the slow flash of white out of the corner of his eye as Penhall turns his head at the movement. "You okay?"

Tom nods once, not looking up, not wanting to move more than that due to the resulting twinges. "Fine." His voice rasps more than he expected, feeling weak and under-formed in his throat.

Jude's tiny green car pulls in at the curb and Penhall looks away from Tom, looks up and out. The pavement gleams a bit -- it's late enough at night that the cold air has sunk down to wetly darken the concrete, and the steps to Penhall's apartment building look like they're sweating, dirty and white. "Hey." Penhall's looking at him again. "Are you sure you don't need to go to the ER? Safety's sake, y'know."

Jude peers into the rear view mirror before turning in her seat to face him. "Yeah, you don't look so hot. We can't have you taking a sick day tomorrow just because you were too stubborn to get yourself checked out tonight."

"Hey," Tom answers, irritation rising with a myriad more of aches and pains as he shifts his shoulders. "I said I was fine, okay? It's not like _I_ fell through the roof or anything. I just need some sleep." He wrinkles his nose suddenly as, oh. "…And a shower."

"You can always crash at my joint," Penhall suggests, leaning in to look closer into Tom's face in the dull streetlight, shoulder muscles shifting at the angle as he slings his arm along the back of the bench seat. He glances up at Jude. "You're right, he looks terrible."

"Look," Tom says, tone approaching vehemence, but then he attempts to shift in his seat to get a better angle to retort and, ow. Maybe he won't make it the next few blocks, let alone up the stairs to his apartment. "Okay, whatever. Thankyou."

Tom looks up at Penhall again, waiting for the usual punch line, but he just nods. Tom blinks. Penhall's face only holds a hint of humour, mouth turned up a little at the edge, but otherwise pretty blank. A bit tired. _And he must be more than a **bit** tired, so that's a pretty easy mask to pick_. "Come on, then," Penhall's face breaks into a grin, finally. "I'll carry you up the stairs."

 

Luckily the building has an elevator, loud and shuddering-to-pieces as it is, but Tom can't tell if the relief that rushes over his skin when he finally gets into the apartment is because of the short trip down the hall from elevator to door (especially after being crammed in Jude's back seat for the duration of the ride) is over, or because Penhall was only kidding about the stair thing. Which he was, of course. Tom would laugh at himself but for the increasing discomfort of the bands of pain settling around his ribcage.

Penhall shoves the random mix of things on the seat of the slouching sofa -- papers, toys, cassettes -- off to the floor. Tom's too tired to look to closely; any kind of energy he might have had let draining rapidly and he finds to his disgust that his limbs are actually shaking. "Can I…?" He keeps one arm close by his side, gestures vaguely with the other toward the rest of the apartment. "Or do you want to…?"

"Oh… Sure." Penhall straightens again. "You take the first shower tonight, you need it more." Mouth curling up again. "I'll have one in the morning. Not that long to go anyway. Second door to your right."

Tom attempts a smile, not quite sure of its success (his face feels like it must be twice it's normal size with the entire freaking left side of it about to throb right off) and attempts to move towards the hallway Penhall had pointed to, with varied success.

"Whoa, whoa," And Penhall's right there, still with the stupid hat and barber-shop striped shirt; with his hand clamped around Tom's bicep. "Hanson, buddy. Take a load off." He finally pulls the hat off, lowering them both carefully onto the sofa, which Tom immediately proceeds to sink into. Penhall peers into his face. "How you doin' there?"

Tom blinks. Blinking hurts. He really wants to have a shower. Penhall's apartment smells like a bachelor pad, sure (kinda like Tom's apartment smells, only more like Penhall and less like Tom), but Tom kinda smells worse than that. He _really_ wants a shower. Unfortunately, the rest of his body doesn't really want to cooperate with his brain, and Penhall grips his arm and halts his attempts to rise again with ease.

"I'm _fine_. Can I just…?" His attempt at sounding irritable again is thwarted once more; it comes out more as a croak and he shuts up again. Penhall ignores it, grip not loosening on Tom's forearm as he leans his face in close. "What the--hey!" Tom wrestles his arm away, attempts to back further into the increasingly clingy cushions.

Penhall throws up his hands. "Will you calm down? I just want to have a look at it, seeing as you were too pig-headed to let a professional do it." Tom scowls. "And besides, I don't think you have much choice considering you can barely _walk_."

"Hey," Tom retorts. "Shut up. I'm just tired is all. It's been a long day."

"It's been more than a _long_ day," Penhall mutters in response, and Tom rolls his eyes and leaves them there, looking up and away as Penhall leans forward again on Tom's sigh of almost-resigned exasperation. Penhall's hand comes to rest somewhat lighter on inside of Tom's elbow. Tom resists the urge to twitch. He can feel soft strokes of Penhall's measured breath on his chin, then Penhall's fingers as his head is tilted back and he squints into the light. For a while the only sound is Tom's blood in his own ears, heart still stubbornly plodding up despite being wrung out; then there's the hiss of air through Tom's teeth as Penhall's fingertips brush the skin beneath his eye and then _press_ before he flinches back, eyes dropping again accusingly.

"What?" This time Penhall doesn't lean back again, and is instead wearing a permutation of what Tom has come to know as his 'who, me?' expression. And that's enough to give Tom abrupt pause in his somewhat cutting response. Um.

"Are you done?" Tom says finally, when the words can struggle past the blockage that has somehow settled at the base of his throat, until he realises that the heaviness is Penhall's hand resting on his breastbone.

"Almost, I just…" Penhall's fingers blur close in Tom's vision, sliding under Tom's still-damp bangs and lifting to peer at Tom's forehead and, um. "Let me just look…" Penhall's gaze shifts, sliding down to click into Tom's own gaze and the last remaining shreds of Tom's energy slither from his extremities to where Penhall's hand rests of his chest and Penhall's face shifts out of focus and blurs and then his lips are dry and slightly crapped against Tom's and

"Fuck, you--" Tom flails a little before he can struggle out of the heavy embrace of the sofa and shove Penhall's weight off in an unprecedented burst of energy, _"Fucking--"_

"Hey," Penhall's eyes are wide, face expressionless, hands in the air again as he moves further to the other side of the couch and Tom flops onto the opposite arm, body tense again and each bruise alive and pushing out and a weak strain of adrenaline making his limbs shake; he grips the arm of the sofa hard to still them. "Hey."

Penhall seems to have otherwise lost the power of speech, which allows Tom to breathe out another curse - _Fuck_, three times in one night, that breaks his track record somewhat -- and regain control enough to glare in Penhall's direction "What the hell was that?"

"Nothing," Penhall's voice is quiet, but his face has settled into it's usual lines. Tom finds himself waiting for the punchline again, looking for it in the Penhall's brow, in familiar curve of Penhall's mouth before it breaks into a grin. Tom tastes something salty, odd, and realises he's involuntarily licked his lips; the flavour of Penhall-the-pizza-boy's anchovies taking him back to the smell of it amidst the sweat-and-fear scent of the high school office. Penhall drops his gaze. "Nothing. It's nothing. Sorry buddy. You need anything?" He stands suddenly, turns away, begins walking toward the hall. "Blankets? Pillows?"

"That'd be nice," Tom responds stiffly, relaxing only a little.

 

When Tom wakes up it's like he's a corpse being re-animated; despite lying flat on his back he's still managed to sink into the sofa and he can't quite move yet as he gets used to the blood inching through his veins yet again, a lace net binding his arms and hands and fingers and legs before it's flowing enough for him not to notice. He's not sure what time it is. He's not sure he wants to know. He's not sure he could get up, even if he wanted to. He feels like his entire body's been used as a dishrag; filthy and wrung-out completely. He wonders what Jenko might be doing right now, wonders what his dad might have been doing. Imagines them waking up like this, in a still room, close as a coffin.

He really needs to use the bathroom. Every single bruise pounds back to life as soon as he pushes himself up on his elbows, swings his legs over the edge of the sofa, forces himself to stretch out as he stands. _Second door to the right_, he reminds himself, and stumbles toward the hall. He doesn't hear the shower running until it's too late, and the door's already kind of ajar anyway, he just had to push it a bit and his head was down anyway and--oh. The shower curtain's pretty flimsy, white printed with what look like blue and grey race cars, and the steam is making it billow a bit around the edge and oh. Penhall's standing very still and facing away but Tom can still tell what's going on with the rhythmic clench and release of the solid shoulder muscle of Penhall's right arm and, oh, Tom should really leave now, just walk out and pull the door back half-closed where it was before he pushed it open to see the solid stream of water hit the back of Penhall's neck and bedraggle the tufts of hair there and outline every curve of muscle in his back and… It's only when the steam thickens and becomes overwhelming that Tom has to step back so he can breathe again.

"Fuck," Tom mutters under his breath, getting as far as the sofa again before he has to brace his hands on it, arms locked straight. "Fuck." Maybe he should have gone to the ER. Maybe he should have gone home. Maybe he should have just stayed in Judy's car all night, and all the next day, and however long it took his body to get itself back into proper working order again.

"Morning." Tom lifts his head again, stands up straight, turns and watches as Penhall walks into the small kitchenette, leaning back against the low back of the sofa in an imitation of nonchalance. Penhall pours the water from the already-full coffeepot into the percolator's reservoir, scratching at the wet hair on the back of his neck. "Hungry?"

"Uh," Tom clears his throat. "What time is it?"

Penhall glances at the clock advertising some brand of beer on the wall to his right. "Twenty minutes past the hour. Eight. You want your shower now?" He turns to face Tom, mirroring Tom's pose by leaning back against the kitchen bench. His face is clean but not clear, blank but for the tension at the edges of his jaw, the heaviness above his eyebrows refusing to form a furrow. Tom pushes off the sofa, stands up straight. Walks into the kitchen. Leans against an adjacent bench. Shrugs. "Coffee?"

"Sure. Black with one."

Penhall turns back to the percolator as it finishes its arrhythmic, congested hissing, and when he turns back with a mugful Tom is standing considerably closer. He blinks. "How's the face?"

Tom shrugs. "Hurts. How's it look?"

Penhall peers, then half-grins. "Black and blue," he sing-songs. "Beautiful."

"So, what," Tom says, gripping the scalding hot ceramic between both hands. "That's why you got into this business?"

Penhall stops mid-turn, frowns. "What business?"

"The police business. Is that why you joined the academy?"

Penhall seems to finally be picking up on the edge to Tom's words, the blunt cut of his tone. "Is what why I joined the academy?" he asks, very still.

Tom carefully puts his coffee cup on the edge of the sink. "So you get to mack onto the victims?"

Penhall turns away entirely; Tom watches his hands clench the edge of the benchtop, knuckles shifting beneath the skin. His heart is pounding. "No," Penhall answers, a single fierce word.

When he speaks again his voice is ice-sharp and burning against Tom's skin; quiet where Tom expected it to be loud. Penhall turns again, suddenly up close and towering. "I joined the academy so I could mack onto the fucking _cops_."

"Is that so." Tom's fingernails dig into his palm, bruises banding around his limbs and tightening with the hammering of his blood; Penhall's voice soft but still loud enough to be heard over it, somehow.

"Yeah, that's so." His face, so close, eyes clear and burning where Tom expected them to be cold, brow tense, skin of his jaw smooth over bunched muscle; like Tom's, with the ease and shallow shame of not having to shave every day. Tom lifts his hands and puts them against Penhall's chest, fisted, and shoves hard.

Penhall recoils like he wasn't expecting it, but recovers quickly; gripping Tom's wrists and stumbling him backward with a series of rapid steps forward, slamming them against the edge of the bench top on the far side of the kitchen. Tom swears again and Penhall stops it, clean slide of his mouth sharp-toothpaste-flavoured and Tom grunts, skin prickling all over with the grind of thin, already-scored skin between his wrist bones and the tiled edge, the chafe of dirty clothes against his still-sticky skin. He opens his mouth wider.

"Fuck, Hanson, fuck," Penhall pants, breath hot against Tom's wet skin. Tom flexes his fingers; Penhall presses harder. Tom licks his lips, squirming a little to feel the harsh edge of the bench against his lower back, Penhall's belt-buckle against his belly and the stirrings of Penhall's cock against his groin.

"You looked really stupid in that pizza-boy costume, you know," Tom mutters against Penhall's mouth, teeth bared. "I can't believe they bought it."

"If you wanna talk _stupid_," Penhall growls, sliding his mouth over the edge of Tom's jaw, tracing up along the bruise-covered cheekbone. "The square get-up didn't really do it for me. The pocket protector and spectacles weren't quite convincing, Clark Kent." He pushed his hips forward harder, teeth scraping, and Tom bites down on his lip, not gently.

"Oh yeah? What does do it for you, Doug?" he pushes up and Penhall snarls. Tom's realises his hands are numb at the same time Penhall lifts his head back far enough that they can look eye-to-eye again.

Penhall smirks, an abrupt softening in his face, and he nods, dipping his head down to his chest and up again. "Coffee's getting cold."

Tom slumps abruptly as Penhall steps away, the rush of sensation back into his hands making it somewhat difficult to hold himself up against the bench and he has to make a conscious effort to close his mouth as Penhall moves out of the kitchen, back down the hall. "You'd better have that shower, too," comes the call from deeper in the apartment. Tom wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "You smell terrible. And make it quick, we have to fill in yesterday's reports before noon."

**Author's Note:**

> http://hopeful-fiction.livejournal.com/28504.html


End file.
